You needn’t tell Scott Robinson what a...

You needn’t tell Scott Robinson what a small world it is. He was listening to a dramatic radio recital of the Christopher Commission’s collection of infamous LAPD computer messages Sunday morning when he heard a knock at the door.

Two LAPD officers were standing outside.

“We’ve had a noise complaint,” said one.

Robinson admitted that he had been listening to the radio; the police pressed him to identify the program.

“Was it a talk show?” one curious officer asked during the five-minute chat. “Something with a lot of dialogue? Music?”

Robinson, who was not cited, never revealed that he was listening to the computer message reading by KCRW’s Harry Shearer. Nor did the officers reveal whether the complaint came from a resident, or, perhaps, from the riders in a passing black-and-white car.

Hospital Ahoy!

Picky, picky. A county commission will huddle again this week to try to determine a site for a new county hospital in the San Gabriel Valley after a flaw was detected in its first choice. A location in South El Monte was rejected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the grounds that it ain’t safe grounds. It’s in a flood plain.

It was back to class for L.A. city school kids Monday--but that isn’t Venice’s Class of ’92 in our accompanying photo. It’s a Chamber of Commerce shot from the 1920s, designed to lure Easterners and Midwesterners to move out here and clog up our traffic.

Our item the other day about the school district refusing to accept cash from a teacher for her bilingual certificate fee reminded Marty Girvan of Pasadena of a similar scene in a grocery store. “The person in front of me was paying cash,” Girvan said, “and the clerk, before accepting his money, asked him if he had any identification!”

Maybe we’ll all be carrying cash-guarantee cards soon.

USC’s fraternities and sororities are known for their colorfully costumed parties. So perhaps the person who compiled the “International Student Enrollment” list on a Student Union wall had a big wingding in mind at the time. The South Pacific island nation of Tonga was misspelled Toga.

miscelLAny:

The Richard M. Nixon Freeway (90) on the Westside was renamed the Marina Freeway by the State Legislature after the Watergate scandal. California 90, coincidentally, pops up in the former President’s birthplace of Yorba Linda. While it’s officially the Imperial Highway, sentimental townsfolk call it the Nixon Freeway.